1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle control system for controlling a vehicle relative to the shape of a road on which it is traveling and in which the shape of the road is judged based on a map information comprised of a plurality of coordinate points constituting the road.
2. Description of Relevant Art
There is a known vehicle control system designed to transmit information such as an approach speed and a steering angle required for a vehicle to smoothly pass through a curve from a transmitter placed at a location short of an inlet of the curve so as to control a traveling state of a vehicle on the basis of such information (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 149700/91), and there is a known vehicle control system designed to control an auto-cruising device or the like of a vehicle on the basis of information such as the gradient of a road, the condition of a road surface and the radius of a curve which have been stored in a CD-ROM (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 15799/92).
The former system is disadvantageous in that it is difficult to place it on all roads, because costs for equipment and maintenance become too expensive, and the latter system is disadvantageous in that it is difficult to realize because it requires a very large amount of data. The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the known systems.